The Skrit Na Chronicles
by Ember Nickel
Summary: From the humblest beginnings as a Skrit to a Na far from home. From the dangerous life of a mercenary to unity with an unimaginable entity. This is the journey of one creature in a big galaxy.
1. Skrit: First Instar

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The Skrit Na Chronicles

Skrit: First Instar

I hatch in the smoggy midmorning: a bad omen, of course. Any day is misfortunate when the great sky cannot be seen.

Immediately I am overcome by a desire to consume, to have something for mine. It is not the tragic obsession of a Taxxon that I will behold later, but it is a sort of greed. I want something to eat.

So a nursemaid comes to feed me. She limps slightly, leaning back on her twelve rearmost limbs, as she clumsily bears leaves in her front two. Instinctively, I seize them from her. I am still too small to truly be off-balance, so I do not topple: I can barely stand. But I do not want her to give them to me. I want to take them as my own. Take them from her!

Once they are mine, gloriously mine, I eat.

Around me are other children. I do not recognize them as being like the nursemaid, but smaller; neither do I recognize them as being like myself. No child understands the self. Perhaps when one does, it is no longer a child.

So we grow up as "we", scuttling for food. We gnaw through wood and hoard any leftover scraps. I am standing protectively over a leaf when another nabs it from me. Still unsure of what he is, still unsure of what I am, I stretch out a limb to take it back.

With no "me" there can be no "mine", so I do not desire it just because I had it first. Perhaps even the passage of time is irrelevant. I desire it because I _can_ desire it: it is there for the taking.

I grip it, but he is stronger than me. I do not relent, however, and we pull until it tears. I am left with a small fraction, while he gets the majority.

I nibble on mine. He wolfs down his, then moves for mine.

The nursemaid comes with more. The others scramble for it: I back away and savor mine, caressing it with my antennae. I am not aware, of course, of any difference between my behavior and the others. But it is there.

So perhaps I am doomed, even then.

I eat and eat, and grow. We all do, though slowly. Once the joy of acquiring our food is consummate, the actual act of feeding is unimportant. But I do, as I must.

The Great Ones come in and out. While we amble from place to place, they walk with purpose. They look at only one of us at a time. When one returns, it is always to look at the same of us they saw last time, but none of us figure that out.

There is one that comes for me. Mindlessly, I react to his touches, drooling and cooing as he gently strokes me.

One day, he _gives_ food to me. I don't understand it: he sets it down in front of me and just leaves it there.

I approach it cautiously and take it, but it brings no pleasure to me. So I grasp it, holding it out threateningly. If he wants it, he can take it from me.

He pauses for a minute, remembering (though I cannot know this) his own childhood. Then he charges at me, reaching for the food. I pull it back, while he continues coming at me. He is larger than me, but agile enough to maneuver around me. While he eventually seizes possession of it, I pull it back. It changes limbs several times, but never breaks: I always wind up with it when a rip seems imminent.

Tired but proud, I nibble on the food I have at last earned. He pats my head approvingly, though I don't understand.

Once I eat it all, I look to him for more. I do not look at him in the way I look at the nursemaid. She I _know_ brings food, or calms us when we are ill. But this Great One, on that day, I begin to realize is here for _me_. And while I feel some emotion back towards him, at the moment all I want is more food. He has no more, however, and he leaves shortly thereafter.

And I miss him. "I" and "him", things I did not understand before. Instead of pining for him, though, I begin to watch the other children in the camp. Once I learn to recognize them, I will know from whom I can take things.

The one with whom I fought first is one of the biggest, but not as bright as me. The little girls seem smart, sometimes, but mostly steal each other's. I'm bigger than them, but if I take their food, who's to say they won't all go after me? I stick to taking it from the other boys. They take it back from me, of course, but none of us starve.

One day, I take a woodchip from a boy about my size, a little smaller than me. Usually, fights are between just two people at a time. But that day, another boy takes the chip back from me. I try to fight him, but the boy who had it first fights me as well, and I can't fend them both off.

In the end, only about half of it survives our assaults. The third boy eats it. But later on, when the smaller boy fights him for a leaf, he hardly puts up a fight. Maybe he's just tired from fighting me, but it seems like something else is going on. I just can't understand what.

Later in the day, the small boy seems to be breaking apart. He stands in one place as part of his body falls off. When the nursemaid comes with more food, the other boy takes more than he did before and holds onto it, as if he wants to let the frozen boy fight him for it later on.

The next morning, neither of them are there.


	2. Second Instar

Second Instar

I take notice that neither of them are there. Then I wonder if I can take more food from the nurse, because neither of them will take any. I decide that I probably can and don't give the matter any more thought.

But when the nurse comes, I don't get any more food than normal.

So I watch the girls as they take food from each other. A nimble runner grabs a leafy branch from a slower, lazier girl. She's a fast runner, but I cut her off and grab it back.

Then the lazy girl assaults me. She's a lot stronger than I expected-most of the boys are stronger than most of the girls. I don't need a fight. I snap the branch, hoping to break it into two pieces. It breaks into three. I give her one.

She punches me again. I roll onto my back, and, while I'm reeling, she takes the other two.

It isn't fair. Without me, she wouldn't have had _any_thing to eat! And that's how she repays me?

I try to get up, to fight back, but I can't move. I feel tired, even though I've just woken up. I want to sleep, but I can't even climb into the corner of the yard where I usually do.

So I stay where I am, a helpless prisoner. When I start to feel pain, I wonder if it was caused by the girl's punch, but the day has passed so monotonously that I can hardly remember how long ago it was. But I feel cracking sensations, crumbling like a woodchip.

Then, at last, glorious energy pulses through my veins. I immediately want to run, but only make slow progress forward. As I do, I feel things fall off of me and onto the ground.

The nursemaid-who somehow doesn't look quite as big as normal-approaches me, food in her hand. I eagerly reach out for it, but she scampers away. As I follow, she opens a gate beyond the compound, out into somewhere I've never been before.

I trot after her as far as the gate. She goes through, while I linger outside. None of us have ever been outside, yet there she is, food and all.

So, dubiously, I follow after. Instead of being punished like I half-expect, however, I am led down a path, stretching as I do. It feels wonderful to move around.

Then, a gate like the one I had left comes into view. The nursemaid unlatches it and walks inside. I follow. She gives me the leaf she was holding.

But for the first time, there is something more interesting than food. Both of the boys that had disappeared the previous night are there as well. This makes me happy for some reason, or at least relieved, though I don't know why.

The nursemaid hands over the twig, which I eat, though with less interest than usual. Then she returns to the gate. Although I follow after her, she closes the gate behind her, leaving me inside.

I stare out at her, unsure why she has led me here. She walks away, and I watch her go. It's upsetting. I don't know where I'm going to get food.

Then, as she disappears, I have an idea. I grapple at the latch like she had, fumbling ineffectively. If I can open the gate, I can go back to the compound.

But my fingers are clumsy, and I can't open the latch.

Behind me, I hear a soft whine. It's the smaller boy from the compound. He's holding out a twig. I easily overwhelm him for it. It makes a satisfying noise when I snap it in half. I eat the first half and save the second for later in the day. Then I see the larger boy coming, and I eat it before he can take it from me.

I walk around the compound, first quickly, then slowly as I tire. I am not aware enough to truly brood, but I still feel unsettled, like something is not quite right.

At last I am too tired even to inch forward, and settle into sleep.

I wake up, and don't remember that I'm in the wrong place. So I go about my day as I would have before, eating and running around. As the days follow each other, life quickly becomes much like it was in the first compound, with only a subtle worry that something I can't articulate is wrong.

I play with those two boys sometimes. Their fights for food are very quick. Some fights I watch and learn from, the best ways to kick and grapple, but theirs never seem very skillful. While they'll viciously oppose most of us, they fight me just as weakly. Of course, I easily overcome them.

Then one morning they freeze in place, crumbling but reemerging. The nursemaid ushers them away, out of sight. Without them to rely on for easy food, I have to fight everyone else harder.

I don't really _miss_ them, I just wish I knew where they were. As I think about them, I think of maybes why they did what they did. Maybe they fought each other less hard so they'd have more energy for everyone else. Maybe they won only half the fights with each other, so they'd both have food. Maybe they wanted to let me in too, so I could work with them. Maybe I was too dumb, and I missed my chance. Maybe not, of course, but I still feel upset.

But the Great Ones come as they did in the past, sometimes glancing over all of us, most of the time for only one of us. One comes for me like he did in the compound. Instead of food, I fight him (though I always win) for strange objects. They are not good to eat, I quickly find out, but I keep them anyway. When I am not eating, I need something to do. Some of them make noise, and some of them flash in different colors. We fight for them almost as hard as we do for food. A couple of the girls seem to fight even harder.

After I see that Great One come to visit me, I completely forget that this is the "wrong" place. It's a new compound, but it's still home. Home is wherever he comes for me.


	3. Third Instar

Third Instar

And then it happens again: apathy, paralysis, pain. The others approach at times, macabrely curious, while I remain stagnant.

A skinny boy picks up a large chunk of dead skin that's fallen off of me. I am indignant--it's _mine_. He tries to throw it to somebody else, but it disintegrates in the middle of the air.

Nobody sees me, but I gloat. There's nothing else to do.

Once I am finally blessed with energy again, I run around the compound until I am tired. As I relax, trying to regain my energy, I look down at myself. If I am bigger than I was before--I _feel_ bigger--maybe I'll do better at the games.

But when I try to look at myself, my neck hurts and my eyes blur. I try to remember how I was before, but I had no reason to look at myself them. There is little that I remember; the past never seemed like the past. Only one moment of the present and another moment of the present, in order. There was never a reason to think about it when it was going on.

In the end, it doesn't matter. When the nurse comes to give us food, she leads me out of the compound. I _do_ remember having come from a different compound, yet I have a feeling that I won't be going back to the place I came from. Somehow, I'm right.

The boys are here as well, however, and other children that look different from the others. It's as if I can see them coming from farther away, and know that it's them. If I knew what familiarity was, I would have known that that was it.

The Great One who comes for me, though, I could recognize anywhere and do follow, somewhere beyond my understanding.

When he comes for me, he has nothing for the first time. No food and no toys, but I come to understand that he wants me to go with him. Trustingly, I follow.

He leads me outside the compound, but not down a path. Instead, I see what look like small toys in the distance, brightly colored. Eagerly, I run towards them.

But as I do, they grow. They are larger than me, larger than either of us! Fear makes me freeze, but he gently progresses, and I nervously continue.

He approaches a black one, and opens part of it up like it was a gate, than does something strange. He disappears, no longer standing on the ground with me. The thing is still there, and he is...part of the thing.

He makes a noise, and rematerializes, grabbing me. I squirm in fear, but he drags me..._into_ the machine. I remain there and real, however, and so does he.

Then the machine begins to move very quickly over the ground. I am thrust against its back wall, but remain within it as we accelerate.

It is nothing like anything I have ever experienced before. If I had control over something like this, I would dominate over all the other children. But I could not control such a large machine; that is the job of the Great One.

I have eaten my last meal of the day by the time he comes, and am tired by the time we arrive. The machine stops moving, and as I relax, the Great One leaves the machine, moving confidently towards a colossal structure. I try to follow, but can't extricate myself from the machine. Nervously, I wait until he enters the structure. Part of the machine is made out of a material that allows me to see him as he goes, but once he is inside it, I can't see him anymore.

Yet he returns shortly afterwards, letting me out. I walk around the machine, trying to reorient myself, but he quickly leads me towards more machines. If the ones I'd seen had been beautiful, these were dazzling. Most are bigger than the one we'd come in, although he leads me towards one of the smaller of those.

There is another Great One already there, and both of them make high-pitched whines as the one that comes for me leads me up a ramp, into the big machine. He puts a protective hand on me, and then...

We are moving! Very quickly, but not in a direction I have ever been before. Towards the sun and the stars. Nervously, I skitter around the machine, but I lose my grip on the almost-ground as I do so. I try to propel myself back towards the others, but can't get any of my legs under control. They flail as I float helplessly, not knowing enough to stop trusting.

But at last we all fall towards a new opening in the machine. The Great One that I know pulls himself through into a different place, then reaches in for me. I follow him through round hallways in soft metals until we can go no farther. But he finds an opening and puts part of his body inside, blocking it from me. There are noises, low and broken staccatos. Then he moves all the way in and turns, beckoning me.

It looks like a night, with stars everywhere. There is smoke in the room, and Great Ones. Woozily, I lose focus, and I feel myself being hoisted aloft. Each of my legs is raised towards the glorious sky.

A lady approaches us, the largest person that I have ever seen. She makes a lot of sound. Had it not been for the distractions in the air, it might seem important. The noises that the Great Ones made when they were together never matter before, but whatever the seer has to say would sound meaningful under other circumstances. But it's just useless prophecy, nothing more.

Only when it is over do I miss it. Only after the Great One helps me return down the hallway, into the transport ship, to the spaceport, the compound, do I crave the sky once more. Some prophecies fulfill themselves; the old teach the young by making a past so powerful it forces them to think of the future.


	4. Fourth Instar

Fourth Instar

I see the world differently now. My eyes are drawn upward, and for short bursts of time, the rest of my body follows. I can jump, and that helps me sometimes. I can lift toys beyond others' reach, or leap to snag one from somebody else.

I am less concerned when the other two boys leave than I was in the past. I have a memory now, an indelible one, and although all the others are faint in comparison, they orbit around it like a bright star. Of course, I had memory in the past. I could think of my Great One even when he was not there. But now, I remember how they left compound after compound. And shortly afterward, I did as well.

This time, I am not so upset when I freeze in place. If anything, I am bored. I want to be doing something, but can't.

But it seems to go faster than it did before, and when I am led out the gate, I follow eagerly, glad to stretch my growing legs.

The other boys are in the next compound too, and so are others that I have seen before. And _remember_ seeing before: here is the girl who won footraces, that is the boy that fit a lot of food in his mouth.

There are more balls to throw and toys to play with. The others are more experienced, but I'm good at throwing the ball up into the air. I want to follow it, to be surrounded by stars again, or to once again see the red sun. When I was up in the sky, I saw a large sun, dark red and brown. It hurts to look at the golden sun, but the red one was pretty. I don't see it anymore, though; it doesn't shine during the day or the night.

I am glad when new children come. Old ones leave, and the new kids are weaker than me. Some of them are familiar from the other compounds, but I don't recognize all of them.

After the small boy freezes, I watch him go away. Instead of walking to another compound, however, the nursemaid takes him in one of those colorful machines. It moves quickly away from the fence where I stand, watching until I can't see it and my head feels funny and bad.

The next morning, I wake early. It is still dark, but there are no stars. There is a strange noise. It is the larger boy, whining.

He is standing in a pile of junk that has fallen off him. But the nursemaid is nowhere in sight.

I try to go back to sleep, but I am not tired. It is a cold morning, and I am hungry. There's nobody to play with except the other boy, but he is standing at the gate from where he should have left, looking for a way out.

Gradually, the others stop sleeping. But with no nursemaid we have no food, and many of the younger children become restless. A few of the newest ones run wild, throwing anything they can find at each other as long as there isn't any authority to break it up.

But I stand alone and worry, desperately craving not even the joy of possession, but only something to eat.

I walk around the compound, and instantly recoil. There on the ground is a shimmering silver object, bigger than a person though not quite as big as a Great One. It does not move.

Maybe we can eat it. I reach down and try to scoop out a bite, but it does not come apart.

The large boy notices and joins me, tentatively probing the thing with his antennae. Nothing happens.

I have no appetite for playing. The others eventually return to running around, but running makes me tired and hungry. Going back to sleep would be nice, though, if only to get away from everything.

By the time the sun changes direction, and the time we should have gotten even more food, I'm even more uncomfortable. The others' giddy running around has given way to irritated lethargy. We have to _do_ something.

I walk over to the gate where I entered, but can't get it open. My front legs can tilt forward just enough to hold and fight; the gate requires a Great One's agility. Yet we must get through. I push all my weight against it, never considering trying the other gate. We wouldn't know where to go, even if we did make it.

The larger boy follows me and, noticing what I am doing, joins me. There's not enough room for both of us, though, and I only get tired.

So I wave the others over like I was waving them out the gate. I'm almost as big as the nursemaid, maybe. It's hard to remember exactly what she looks like when she isn't there. But they must understand that going backwards is better than staying put, because they come.

We form a mob at the gate and, before I am really ready, somebody behind me begins to push. As the wave of force ripples through, I am pressed up against the gate. Unable to protest, I exert all the effort I can in pushing outwards as I am squeezed into agony.

It feels like days later that it gives way. I am swept forward, trying to run, and barely make it out without being trampled. We are all moving slowly, drained of energy: the smaller kids from running around, me from pushing against the gate. Most of us were pushing, and the few that weren't join us after the gate falls apart, if only because everyone else is leaving.

I feel uncertain now with everyone looking at me, but there is nothing else to do except set out down the path. I turn around more than once as we walk back towards the other compound, but they're always still with me.


	5. Fifth Instar

Fifth Instar

It seems like a longer trip than it was before, though it is foolish to trust the blurs of my memory more than the ground under my feet. Some of us stop along the way to rest, while others turn back to the compound. Leading the group, I don't see them go.

It is getting dark by the time we reach the far gate. I can't open it, of course, but one of the little children inside sees us and throws a ball over.

One of the kids who'd come with me picks it up, but this is not a time for playing games. I ram my head into her side with more force than I think I have. She recoils, and I grapple for the ball. She surrenders it immediately, scared.

Walking up to the gate, I deliberately place the ball within my mouth, as if I am eating it. Most of them flee, grossed out. A taller boy lingers longer than the rest, staring as if trying to understand, but he eventually leaves too.

I spit the ball onto the ground, and not a moment too soon. Where is this compound's nursemaid? Is that her? She _is_ smaller than me.

A small boy in my group comes over and puts his head up against the gate as if to destroy it, too. I pull him away. They know we are here. They just don't know what we want, and I don't know how to let them know.

Night falls, and I slump against the gate. The others are half-conscious, idly lying down, or have given up and are trooping back to the place where they think they belong. Above us, the sky has been shorn of the sun and is just waiting for the stars to show up. I have given up hope of seeing that beautiful red sun ever again.

Once we wake, I see them eating inside. Desperate, I kick the gate: not hard enough to break it, but, I hope, hard enough to make noise.

There isn't much sound, but the tall boy from before notices me. He is eating a twig, and holds it as if he will break it in half. But he doesn't. Instead, he walks over to me and sticks the twig out through a slat in the gate.

Eagerly, I grab it and snap it, munching on the half I've wound up with. I step aside, waving at all of the others. Can he bring enough food for them, too?

He turns and walks away. For a while I hope that he is going to get food for all of them, not aware of the fact that I surely wouldn't have been able to do so in his position. But he does not return.

Two girls are throwing something to each other. It is a ball, like the one I had in my mouth. Maybe it _is_ the one I had in my mouth. I had put it down, but I don't see it anymore. Then they grow tired, and stop throwing, but roll it instead. Then they kick it meekly.

When fortune at last descends from the mighty stars, I don't recognize it. A Great One walks up to the compound, entering through the entering gate. I follow him around, hoping to join them inside. If the others come with me, could we all get food? They stay where they are.

It is too late, anyhow. The gate closes. But the Great One walks by it, close to where I am.

Even though one of the children inside is approaching him, he turns around and leaves. I feel disappointed for no reason. He wasn't _mine_, after all. He couldn't have done anything.

The child that was approaching him is angry. His Great One has left. He picks up a ball and throws it at me. I don't think to get out of the way, and it hurts when it hits me. Another boy behind me picks up the ball and starts rolling it around.

He, too, tires, more quickly than the girls. But as he rolls the ball back to me and I toss it towards a stand of others, I notice machines growing bigger. Colorful ones!

Slowly, I walk towards them. I do not know what fear is, and even if I did, I cannot conceive of anything worse than this for them to bring.

Great Ones appear next to the machines. They start making noises. One of them walks towards us with food! We mob him—even me, who has had some. I gulp down a twig, oblivious to the others lusting for more.

Then the Great Ones load us into the machines. I feel a jerk, as if I am moving, but see nothing except several others. Some hit the edge of the inside, as if they could break it down like the gate. I am in no hurry to get out. It is time for something new.

I freeze then, unconcerned. The Great Ones will take care of me, won't they? When we jolt to a stop, however, I am...not worried, of course, but when we can see the outside again and the others clamber out, I want to go with them.

But Great Ones come in and carry me out. I take in the bright outside, but not for long. We go into something else. But it is not a moving machine. It is like the nurses' huts...but much bigger.

What can this place be? Even _inside_ it there are further chambers, ways to go more inside. They put me down inside one of those.

I try to follow them out, but they make the wall bigger. So I look around, and there is the large boy. He gives me something I don't recognize. The first thing to try is eating it, of course. It doesn't have a strong taste, but I've never eaten anything like it before, and it is good. I want more, but he doesn't have any.

Little do I imagine that someday, I will make food myself. Even less do I know when I will begin.


	6. Sixth Instar

Sixth Instar

That night, the large boy sleeps on top of a piece of colorful material. I try to bite off a chunk of another piece of the material, but that is impossible. So, tiring, I mimic him, sleeping on it instead.

Always, I have woken up and felt ready to rise. Today, however, I wake and want to go back to sleep. There are loud noises. The large boy is not there.

There is a Great One there, though. Not mine. She makes noise, and holds out a branch covered in leaves. Compared to last night's food, it is boring, but I want to eat. I run at her, ready to fight, but she walks away.

I walk where she is walking, but she goes away. Soon, we are not in the place where I slept. There are too many things to look at! It is too bright, too big.

Eventually I become conscious of a noise from ahead of me. She taps the branch against the ground. The branch, yes. I follow it, and her.

There are many more of us in the place where she stops and gives me the twig. I eat it quickly before anyone can fight me for it, but they all have food of their own.

Then a Great One appears. He holds a small piece of material and a round object up in the air so we all see. Then, an image appears above us. It looks like the Great One, holding the material and the object.

The material suddenly changes color both in the Great One's hand and above us. Setting down the round object, he walks over to the back wall and presses the material up against it. He moves it up and down, left and right.

Many Great Ones walk among us, and they give us materials and objects like the first one has. A girl nearby me tries to eat the material, but the Great One yanks it back, waits, then hands it to her again. She does not try to eat it after that. Neither do I.

Once we all have these things, the Great Ones themselves walk to the edges of the room and begin the same motion. Up, down, left and right.

We stand in place, unsure of what to do. The Great Ones beckon us forward, though, and I approach the wall. Am I to do what they do? I move the rag like them.

But no, they don't want that. One of them holds their round object up, makes a slight movement—and then my eyes burn. There is noise around me, and I am dimly conscious of being touched, pulled from the room. More pressing, however, is the pain. I reach up to rub my eyes without really being sure why I want to, but my limbs are pulled back down.

At last, relief of sorts, though this feeling too is strange. I can see well, though, and see that I am in a different place. There are many strange sights, glittering items cluttering the walls. A Great One holds something out to me. It glitters too.

I reach for it, but he yanks it away. Suddenly, it breaks open, and he pulls out something from inside. It is food, like the boy gave me the other night! Instead of giving it to me, however, he walks over to a wall. Then he creates another space, low in the ground by me. He puts the food inside and the space disappears. He touches a green circle on the wall.

A light turns on, and I see the food. I walk towards it, but the Great One is in the way. Then the light goes off and the food disappears. The Great One finds the hidden space, and the food is there. He gives it to me, and I eat it.

Then he gives me another glittering thing. Is it meant for being broken? I set it down on the ground and jump on top of it.

He makes noise, and holds another. Then it is broken, like two children fighting for the same stick. He holds out yet another, and I grab it with one hand. We pull it apart, and he lunges for the food inside, then gives it to me. I move it towards my mouth, but he grabs me sternly and taps the wall. I notice this time that there is a handle there, like a gate latch. He grabs it, and the space appears.

I put the food in the space like he did. Then he makes the space disappear. He points to the green circle on the wall, and I touch it.

The light goes on, then off. I reach for the handle and yank it out. It hits me in my face, and my eye hurts again. The Great One takes me back to my room, where I spend the rest of the day.

The next day, the other boy remains asleep when the Great One comes for me. I follow him to the same room as before. Once again, there is a glittering thing. I pull it apart and hold the food inside. I know not to eat it, but what else can I do with it?

I wait for him to show me what to do, but he does nothing. Carefully, I try the latch again. Very slowly, I pull it out, and put the food inside. I push it back in quickly so that it does not hurt me, then press the green button. The light goes on, and it goes off.

The Great One does nothing. I pull the latch out slowly and take the food out, greedily gobbling it down.

Then he gives me another glittering thing, and I do the same thing.

We do this over and over again. I do not tire of the monotony as long as I get food at the end, but soon I am no longer hungry. That is strange.

So he walks me over to another place in the wall, opening up a duller container with a different type of food inside. We must do the same thing before we can eat this food.

I see no more of the other children. I am always working alone with the Great Ones, for day after day. Later, they show me food that requires red buttons. Some need yellow, some blue, others a vibrant infrared. It is difficult to remember all of these things, so I practice and practice. I eat the food, though some of it does not taste good. The Great Ones eat that.

And then one day, the Great One leads me outside.


	7. Cadet

_Author's note: Finally, _finally_, done with part one! That took way too long, and I can't promise anything about part two._

_Well, I'll promise you this: it shouldn't be _quite_ as boring._

Cadet

We go in one of the small, bright machines. It presses close against me, closer than before. It is not so painful as getting something in my eye, or being hit with the door, but it lasts longer and I want to get out.

But when the machine stops, I can get out. There is a great machine, like the one that goes up in the sky. I run toward it, and a ramp comes down. I go up it, the Great One behind me, and soon, I go up in the air.

This machine is not the same one as before. There is no smoke, and I can walk normally. So I walk around until I see the beautiful red sun, even brighter than the golden one in the sky. I gaze at it, and when I tire of this, the Great One drags me towards another part of the machine.

There, the ground slides away from me. He pulls me towards the box with the buttons. As I struggle to hold on to it, he hands me food, and I have to practice again. It is easy to remember what color goes with what food—I have been matching them for a long time. But it is hard to control my legs to maneuver over to the box.

I work and work, though, until even being in the great machine is tiresome. Even then, I must remain, awkwardly fighting through the air, grappling for something to hold on to.

The Great One makes noise now, when I give the food to him. If it is a red-button food, one noise; green-button food, another. I do not take note of it until he offers me several different kinds of food at once, and makes a noise. The blue-button food noise, actually, though I do not realize it, and reach for the red-button food. He pulls it back, giving me the blue-button food instead and repeating the sound. For good measure, he makes the red-button food noise and infrared-button food noise too as he points to them.

The next time, I take the green-button food when he makes the green-button food noise. Then, he shows me another box. Inside is very much food, food that needs all sorts of buttons. I open and close the door to this box until I am good at it. From then on, he does not hold out food to me anymore; whenever he makes noise, I have to get the right food from the box.

After that, many other Great Ones are there, making the noises. Each one sounds a little different, but not different enough. I learn what to bring to who. Sometimes, many Great Ones want food at the same time. The first one that makes noise gets food first, then the second, and then everyone else.

One day, I am working when I feel myself freeze. It hurts, but I am tired of working. I drift through the room, floating from one part of it to the other. The Great Ones make noise. They want food. But I cannot even show them that I cannot change the food. At last, one of them finds me and makes noise, though not the food noises. Soon, I can move again, and am bigger. But I cannot go and look at the red sun. I must work.

Soon afterwards, we move down, towards the world. We have to get out of the machine. But my Great One is in the machine. He comes to me and makes noise, not food noise, but it sounds nice. He gives me a ball, but there is nobody to play with, so I give it back to him.

Then he goes away, and the Great One who helps me make food leads me towards another great machine. We go up, into the sky again. Everything is fine; I stay on the ground. Nobody tells me what to do, so I go and look at the red sun. It gets smaller and smaller, until it is just a dot in the sky. There are many stars, tiny but golden.

Then they seem to turn away from me, and I can only see white where the stars should be. I run around nervously, but I am dimly aware that running around won't do me any good. Eventually, I go looking for a Great One, grabbing the first one I see and dragging her towards the white emptiness.

She makes a long stream of noise, finally ending with the yellow-button noise. I walk around, and there are the two boxes. So I get her the yellow-button food. But then, there is not much to do. Either the Great Ones do not want any food, or all of them want it at once. I am either frenetically working or bored, but it is easier than it used to be. I have ground under my feet.

There is another child in the machine. He works like the Great One in the big room on the world works, rubbing material up and down the walls. The Great Ones give food to him; he cannot make noise to get it himself. I myself eat whatever I want! There is so much food here, and I keep some in the place where I sleep.

Gradually, I forget about the blankness beyond the machine. There is a routine to life, if a quiet one. But one day, my legs seem to work without me telling them to. They do not go anywhere: I am standing around some boxes. Yet my legs are doing something without trying to, and I feel tired.

A Great One makes noise. He wants blue-button food. I try to take control of my legs, but something is growing around them, getting in the way. This is not like how I froze when I was about to move between compounds. This is scary. I do not know what it is.

And slowly, the machine blurs, and everything shuts down.


	8. Na

_Author's note: Hey, who remembers this thing? I'm surprised I do! Just kidding._

_I really had no idea what this would turn into when I started writing it. I love dialogue, and to write a story in this style was...quite the change for me. It's been difficult to get inspiration, as you can tell from the time between updates. I have no idea when or if I'll update it again, but I'd like to think I might. Don't hold your breath, though.  
_

Na

I can see, but only dimly, as if I am far away from everything. I feel trapped inside something stifling, and it is difficult to breathe. I must get out! My limbs flail all over the place, and it is difficult to keep track of them all. Then, at last, I feel cold air on my face as I scramble out of a thin film.

What is going on?

I am standing in darkness, on the brown surface of a planet. Nearby is a red mass. It feels wrong, and dim memories float to the surface. A spaceship, a job to do. I tilt my head around, but nothing seems familiar.

Carefully, I step forward—and almost fall over. I am teetering on two legs. Only two! What has happened? I feel like I am very high above the ground, like I was in a spaceship. Tall. Powerful.

Great.

((YOU ARE AWAKE.))

A powerful force stuns me. There is thought in my mind that comes from outside of me. It speaks of a "you," of me. Wildly, I turn around, and now I do fall over. As I clamber back up, I see my legs—skinny and gray. The limbs of a Great One.

((WHAT ARE YOU DOING?))

Something is wondering what I am doing, but I hardly know. So I go back down on the ground to show it, then rise up again. Down, and up.

((STOP THAT.))

I stop it.

((WE NEED YOUR HELP.))

It is not a grammatical statement so much as it is the expression of an emotion. It—or they, it is hard to tell—is desperately relying on me. But this feels good. I know how to obey.

((YOU MUST GO TO THE YEERK SPACEPORTS AND TRADE FOR WHAT WE REQUIRE. IF YOU CANNOT, STEAL IT.)) Only much later am I be able to restate this; it is a wave of thoughts and images. The action of taking a thing away. Many great machines. And small, ugly things that...change people, and turn them into ugly things? It is difficult to understand.

I see myself taking the things away and bringing them back to the red mass. It is my small self, with a body that falls apart from time to time. I see myself taking the things and I understand that it is not happening now—I am standing _here_, not in the place with the many machines—but it must be in the future.

((AND IF YOU FAIL...YOUR COLLEAGUE WAS ONLY BARELY EDIBLE, BUT YOU HAVE CHANGED. DO NOT FAIL.))

It is confusing, but I have images of the other child from the big machine being...eaten?

((WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GO. NOW.))

In the images they have shown me, there is another place. Another place I am supposed to be. But how can I get there? I walk away from the red mass, uncertain.

((THIS WAY.))

Flickers in my head, holes among the darkness. I see the holes for only a moment, but all of a sudden, I see them and they stay in place! I am supposed to go...not _to _them, _through_ them. I approach them and then enter.

It is like I am falling very long and very fall. I am scared.

_But why should I be scared? I have seen the pictures. There will be a future for me, I will return to the red mass._

And now I am not scared.

Then, I am standing on the ground. The ground is orange, but it is still ground. Nobody else is there.

I walk around. I can walk, even on just two legs. It feels nice to walk. I walk faster and faster, running on my two legs! Without so many limbs to get in the way, I can go very fast.

Out in front of me are two arms, like the arms of a Great One. Everything about me I can see looks like a Great One. But I cannot see my eyes or my mouth—I do not know if they are eyes and a mouth like a small self, or eyes and a mouth like a Great One.

It feels good to run and run, but it is lonely. I need to find other people. No, other things! I will take the things away and bring them to the red mass.

Things, things. Where are the things?

I look all around. I do not know where the red mass is or the holes are. But then, I see something else. So I walk towards it.

I want to eat, but there is nothing to eat. So I keep walking and walking. It is a boring walk, with nobody to play with. All I can do is think inside my head.

_Everyone is gone. The Great Ones and the other child. He was...eaten. By the red mass!_

But the red mass needs my help. I can help them, then they will not eat me.

_I need to get the things._

I walk and walk, until I get tired. I put my arms down on the ground. They are not tired. I did not walk with them. But now, I can walk with them—they are legs now, just like a Great One's legs!

So I keep walking, and at last, the far-away things get big. They are not the things I am supposed to get. They are like huts or machines that do not move. Things are going in and out of them.

One of those things comes towards me, and makes lots of noise like a Great One. It is not the noises for making food. But I know I am supposed to get the things from it.

When the Great Ones make noise, their mouths move. When the thing makes noise, its mouth moves. So I move my mouth, but I do not hear any noise.

The thing makes more noise. It moves one...hand, it must be, down at the end of its arm, so it is close to another hand. On the other hand is a silver thing, with buttons on it. Like buttons for making food. I bend down and press several buttons. They are blue, red, and green.

The thing moves its hands away and makes a little more noise, then turns and walks away. It takes a couple steps, then turns and waves to me.

So I follow it.


End file.
